


How Sweet and Strange

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Children, Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, Domestic Fluff, Family, Family Fluff, Group Marriage, Light Angst, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Battle of Camlann (Merlin), Self-Indulgent, Some Humor, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29967975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: There are days when Camlann seems only a vague echo of memory, a dream half-forgotten in the light of day, and there are days when they wake up wondering if they are still in the midst of it."Ten years," Gwen says softly. "It'll be ten years in autumn.""Yesterday and a century ago," Merlin murmurs.
Relationships: Gwen/Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	How Sweet and Strange

Summer is Gwen's favourite time of year.

Of course, since becoming queen, she does not always have the time to enjoy it, but she ensures there are always at least a few days when she can simply sit and just relish the season. She especially loves summer here in Camelot's grounds, when the castle walls are so white they glow in the sun and all the blooms in the gardens are releasing their delicate, sweet smells into the air. The heat she could probably do without some days, but she loves how everything is in full bloom, how everything is greening and growing. She loves the smell of summer storms, the bright, sharp scent of dry lightning, the earthen flavour the humid air gets after rain. She loves how languid it can get when there's nothing better to do than stretch out in the shade and doze the hottest part of the day away. Which is precisely what she's in danger of doing now, sitting in the shaded grass beneath a grandfather yew and reclining against the trunk.

Or at least, she was in danger of it, except now there's a familiar figure standing over her, casting an additional bit of shade. "Am I going to have to carry you inside again?" Merlin asks, leaning his shoulder against the yew. He's always been taller than her, but from here, he almost seems the height of the tree.

Looking up at him, she summons a tiny smile and holds up a hand towards him. "Not if you come sit with me. I need someone to talk to before I fall asleep out here."

"Oh, well, anything to keep my Queen from getting sunstroke." Merlin takes her hand in his, sinking down to sit on the thick grass beside her, leaning his back against the rough trunk of the yew. Within a moment, however, Merlin yawns widely and then chortles. "Oh, hell, I see what you mean. This is a good place for a nap."

"And so you see the danger," Gwen chortles.

"Mm. Do you mind?" he asks even as he scoots a few inches away to give himself room to lay down, resting his head on her lap. Even in the low heat of the summer, the silk of her skirts are cool on his cheek.

Smiling, she runs her fingers through his hair. He's let his hair grow out in recent years, and it curls in charming profusion with length, to her utter delight. She finds it soothing to wind and unwind each of his curls around her fingertip one at a time, letting them run silk-soft through her fingers. He must've taken a bath earlier. She can still smell the faint aroma of lavender oil. She loves that smell; even when Merlin wears it, it never fails to remind her of Arthur.

"Ten years," Gwen says softly. "It'll be ten years in autumn."

"Yesterday and a century ago," he murmurs.

She nods in agreement. When he says things like that, most believe he's being purposefully vague, like all sorcerers are required to speak in riddles, but she knows precisely what he means. There are days when Camlann seems only a vague echo of memory, a dream half-forgotten in the light of day, and it's hard to imagine that anything so horrible had befallen this beautiful, lush land of theirs. And there are days when they wake up wondering if they are still in the midst of it, screaming or sobbing or perhaps both, still able to smell gore and smoke, hearing the screams of dying men and horses, and it is hard to imagine that anything green could grow back through so much blood.

They both come sharply up out of their doze as Eigyr suddenly thunders past on Rabbit, managing a rather impressive leap over one of the lower hedges. "I got him to jump! He jumped! Mother, Athair, did you see?" the girl whoops as she wheels the pony around wildly, brassy curls flying.

"Well done, cariad," Merlin calls back.

"Use your thighs!" Arthur's bellow carries clear across the grounds, even from the far side where he stands by the stables.

"Yes, Father!" Immediately, her seat improves as she turns Rabbit back around and starts back across the grounds, waving to Gwen and Merlin as she passes.

"She'll need a proper palfrey soon," Gwen observes, playing her fingers through Merlin's hair. "Her legs are almost longer than the stirrups now."

Merlin yawns again and nods drowsily. "Amir will be happy to have Rabbit to himself."

She hums agreement, gazing across at the stables where Arthur is helping Eigyr down from the saddle, explaining some vague detail of equestrianism to the children, complete with exuberant gestures, and she finds herself grinning. For all the times he'd thought himself ill-suited for fatherhood, he's taken to it like a trout to a stream.

"I come this close to telling him 'I told you so' at least once a day," Merlin muses, gazing over and no doubt thinking the very same thing she is.

Gwen tugs a lock of his hair. "Be gentle with him. It isn't as though he had a good example to learn from."

"Mm." Smiling, he turns his head to look up at her, hair whispering against silk. "Have you told him yet?"

"Not yet, no. I'm tempted to see how long it takes him to notice."

"Didn't you just say to be gentle with him?"

"I said you be gentle with him, I said nothing of myself."

Merlin laughs at that, tilting his head further into her lap, resting his brow against her belly. For a few heartbeats, his eyes go slightly distant and glassy; when he comes back to the present, an amused smile curls his lips. "Well, he'll certainly notice soon enough," he muses, and Gwen arches her brows at him in silent question. Grinning wider, he holds up two fingers.

Gwen has to press a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. "Oh, gods, we're going to kill him," she giggles.

"Ah, he'll be fine."

"Who will be fine?" Arthur asks as he approaches, holding Eigyr's hand with his left and carrying a drowsing Amir with his right. "And would you mind if we partake of some of your fine shade here?"

Smiling, she makes a sweeping gesture towards the shaded grass. The yew has an impressive canopy, large enough to host the lot of them. "Certainly. And you will be fine," she says.

Arthur leans down to set Amir beside Merlin; the boy shuffles around to lay his head on Merlin's belly and closes his eyes, thumb finding its way to his mouth. "And why would I not be fine?" he wonders, sounding amused despite the faint grimace he makes as he sits down, one hand moving to his side.

Casting a glance to Merlin, she smiles and replies with the perfectly innocent tone she'd perfected years ago. "Because I believe I know a certain princess who is of age to begin riding a palfrey," she says, crooking her finger at Eigyr. Grinning, her daughter comes scooting over on her knees—no doubt getting grass stains all over her breeches—and turns to sit with her back to Gwen.

"Can I, Father?" Eigyr implores, sitting still as Gwen gently combs fingers through her unruly curls and redoes her braids, retying the ribbons that'd come half-unraveled in her ride.

Arthur lets out a slow breath. "We'll see," he says at last, relenting as he always does. "After Lughnasadh, I'll let you start riding Llamrei, and we'll see from there."

Which means she'll have her own palfrey before Mabon. Gwen casts a glance down at Merlin and presses her lips together on a grin; he winks at her, lips twitching with humour.

Leaning back against the trunk once again, Gwen watches Eigyr crawl over to curl up beside Arthur as he reclines in the grass, drowsing in the heat. They're both getting freckled, being out in the sun so often, and their hair's lightened a few shades. In Eigyr's case, it makes her curls more golden than bronze whilst in Arthur's, the flaxen streaks help disguise the odd strands of grey that've begun cropping up.

Gwen tilts her head back, a slant of dappled sun falling across her face and turning the world a dull, muted red behind her closed lids. She breathes in the warm smell of the grounds, slow-baking grass and blooming flowers and tilled earth, and the familiar smell of her family, riding leather and clean sweat and lavender oil. The breeze changes, and she can tell there will be rain soon. They'll need to go inside so they don't get soaked, and so they can get something to eat—she has a familiar craving for honeycomb and pickles—and the children will need putting to bed, despite the familiar protests of not wanting to go to bed when the sun is still up, before the three of them can retire to their shared chamber, the scandal of the King and Queen sharing a single Crown Consort having long since lost its shine.

For now, though, for now they have no place to be except here in the sunny grounds of the kingdom they have fought so hard to claim, to protect, to keep, drowsing in the heat of a mild summer that will soon become the familiar mourning of autumn, though she thinks perhaps it will be easier to bear this year, offset by the reminder of life.

Life, which may not always be easy, but can certainly be sweet.


End file.
